NEW ZEALAND DOUBLEHEADER BEING CONSIDERED IN 2022

With the revised Supercars Championship calendar came the anticipated news that both the New Zealand and Perth rounds have been cut, however CEO Sean Seamer expressed that both are likely to feature on the calendar early in 2022.

It is the second year in succession that both long-haul events have been axed and is a real disappointment for the passionate Kiwis and West Australian fans.

Seamer explained that due to the pause of the travel between New Zealand and Australia, Supercars had no option but to cancel the overseas event this season.

“Unfortunately, we won’t be going to New Zealand or Perth this year I can confirm,” he said in a media conference attended by Auto Action.

“With New Zealand, the challenge for us was that we had a hard no-go date where we had to commit to air freight and incur significant costs on the 1st of September.

“With the announcement from New Zealand, the trans-Tasman border bubble was going to be evaporated for at least another two months, which pushed us past our commitment date on significant costs.

“So, whilst we’re extremely disappointed that we can’t get to New Zealand, we have been speaking to stakeholders there and we intend to get there as early as possible in 2022.”

When prodded further Seamer revealed that Supercars is investigating a doubleheader in New Zealand around the Anzac Day weekend.

“Yes, that is under consideration,” he said.

“There’s certainly ongoing discussions and interest around a doubleheader in New Zealand, and we will pursue those conversations as we develop the 2022 calendar.”

Like New Zealand, Perth has been cut from the calendar but more for broadcast reasons and timing schedules than COVID-related issues.

“Perth is slightly different, but also carrying quite a bit of risk given that it was forecast to be in September,” Seamer alluded.

“The issue for Perth is that [although] it was highly likely that the teams from Victoria and Queensland would be able to travel to Western Australia, September as you will all know is an extremely active month for sport in Australia.

“Broadcast assets as a significant amount of our broadcast capability, both technical and from a talent point of view, are based in New South Wales and have a lot of commitments on the eastern seaboard in September.

“For those reasons, we’ve decided to postpone Perth as well, again, in the conversations that we’ve had with stakeholders in Western Australia, they’re very keen for us to get over there as soon as possible.

“So I think you can expect Perth to return to its more traditional day earlier in the year in 2022.”

A full 2022 calendar is being worked on and Seamer is optimistic about getting that completed by October when the 1000 would normally take place.

“That’s what we’re working through,” Seamer said. “We will be using that time [with no events on] to work on the 2022 schedule.

“Despite Bathurst moving for all the obvious reasons, lead time planning etc. We do need to get that done irrespective of the Bathurst date.”

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